| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Koran: When those who misbelieved put in their hearts pique-the pique of
ignorance-and God sent down His shechina upon His Apostle and upon the
believers, and obliged them to keep to the word of piety, and they
were most worthy of it and most suited for it; for God all things doth
know.
God truly verified for His Apostle the vision that ye shall verily
enter the Sacred Mosque, if God please, in safety with shaven heads or
cut hair, ye shall not fear; for He knows what ye know not, and He has
set for you, beside that, a victory nigh at hand.
He it is who sent His Apostle with guidance and the religion of
truth to set it above all religion for God is witness enough!
The Koran |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from I Have A Dream by Martin Luther King, Jr.: ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro
is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds
himself an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to
dramatize an appalling condition.
In a sense we have come to our nation's capital to cash a check.
When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words
of the Constitution and the declaration of Independence, they
were signing a promissory note to which every American was to
fall heir. This note was a promise that all men would be
guaranteed the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness.
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Walking by Henry David Thoreau: prepared to send back our embalmed hearts only as relics to our
desolate kingdoms. If you are ready to leave father and mother,
and brother and sister, and wife and child and friends, and never
see them again--if you have paid your debts, and made your will,
and settled all your affairs, and are a free man--then you are
ready for a walk.
To come down to my own experience, my companion and I, for I
sometimes have a companion, take pleasure in fancying ourselves
knights of a new, or rather an old, order--not Equestrians or
Chevaliers, not Ritters or Riders, but Walkers, a still more
ancient and honorable class, I trust. The Chivalric and heroic
Walking |
The fourth excerpt represents the element of Earth. It speaks of physical influences and the impact of the unseen on the visible world, and is drawn from The White Moll by Frank L. Packard: breath. It seemed as though suddenly her limbs were refusing to
support her weight. In the soft earth outside she had heard no
step, but she saw now a shadow fall athwart the half-open door-way.
There was no time to move, even had she been capable of action. It
seemed as though even her soul had turned to stone, and, with the
White Moll's clothes in her hands, she stood there staring at the
doorway, and something that was greater than fear, because it
mingled horror, ugly and forbidding, fell upon her. It was still
just light enough to see. The shadow moved forward and came inside.
She wanted to scream, to rush madly in retreat to the farthest
corner of the shed; but she could not move. It was Danglar who was
|
